sweetheart
by koalakoala
Summary: "I bet we'd get more sponsors naked," he says to her, grinning. "Need some help with your costume, sweetheart?" A collection of short vignettes. Haymitch-centric.
1. the thief

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_Disclaimer:_ I don't own The Hunger Games, obviously.

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**sweetheart.**

_Thou shalt not steal._ ~Exodus 20:15

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It's the day of the reaping. Fiftieth. Hunger is almost the last thing on everyone's mind, except for one in particular.

He sneaks into the candy store, relishing the cool temperature inside. The glossy black and white tiles squeak with every step, making him wince. But he stuffs fistfuls of colorful sweets greedily into his pockets.

The clock chimes twelve, but he's already long gone.

Victory is sweet, today. He discreetly slips her a handful of stolen candy and he's glad when she smiles, even if it is still anxious.

Names are drawn, double this year. Worried whispers sweep through the crowd. He couldn't care less about himself as he eats a pristine blueberry-flavored sucker, staining his tongue.

The second girl's name is called. "Maysilee Donner!"

He's so relieved. He squeezes her hand tightly and tells himself he doesn't know the girl who's surely going to die_._ He almost believes it. But he's lying, because her father owns the sweetshop, and he knows that.

Her wide eyes—she's not crying, for some reason—are as blue as his candy. And the taste of saccharine blueberries in his mouth is suddenly, irritatingly bittersweet.

Annoyed, he tosses the sucker to the ground, crushing it into coal-stained shards.


	2. trap door

**A/N: **thanks for your reviews, and have a happy Labor Day weekend.

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**sweetheart.**

_We're the same, you and I; far too young to die_… ~OneRepublic, _Trap Door_

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"Last, but certainly not least...," the escort announces cheerfully. Worry is nearly visible, and the sound of sobbing grates on his nerves. The girl next to him digs her nails painfully into his hand, but he doesn't pull away.

"Haymitch Abernathy!"

His name sounds awful in a Capitol accent, he decides.

There's no slow motion, only a short, surprised moment in which the words quickly sink in like her fingernails. He's going to die. Probably.

He curses his luck.

"Let go," he hisses harshly to the girl. She does, only because there's nothing else she can do. He forces his way through the sweaty mass of kids his age, avoiding looking towards the girl he left behind. It's like a pig pen, really, and he's one of the oh-so-lucky animals chosen to be slaughtered.

The other male tribute is younger than he is, and from the Seam, of course. Almost identical. He pities him as he shakes his hand.

The only blond girl's hand is cool, even in the warm summer day, and unfairly soft. In the short moment when her palm is pressed against his, fingers locking, he loses any of the reluctant regret for stealing he'd previously gathered. His other hand slowly unfolds to dramatically reveal the countless, colorful sweets in his palm.

He cocks an eyebrow.

She scowls at him, blue eyes like ice, frowning pink lips. He tries not to laugh as he mirrors her, oddly satisfied.


	3. win for me, okay?

**sweetheart.**

_Where is the good in goodbye? _~Meredith Wilson, _The Music Man _

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She isn't crying. Neither is he, of course. She sits with him on the ancient, red-velvet sofa that must have withstood dozens of now-dead children.

He can't look at her.

"Haymitch," she whispers, so softly that he pretends not to hear. His hand is rough under her chin as he clumsily brings her head up to meet his lips. The girl wants desperately to scream, to beg him to stay alive, but she knows that it's something no one in the world could ever promise her.

So she swallows the desperate, pleading words and kisses him back.

The knock on the door is too sudden, painfully jarring them back to an similarly painful reality.

"Come back," she says, as if the words would be all he needed. "Win for me, okay?"

"Sure, sweetheart," he answers easily, almost lightly. She isn't fooled, but she sighs and kisses his cheek. The door slides shut with awful finality. "Love you," he says at last, too late, to the dusty room and fraying hole in the carpet. Both of which don't bother to listen.

_Coward, _they whisper.

"I know," he says, irritated. Her words already echo hauntingly in his mind. _Win for me, okay?_

He tries not to let it bother him that the next time he sees her, he'll likely be in a plain wooden box, stuffed and put back together after his surely gruesome death.

She'd better be crying then.


	4. negative

**A/N: **Thanks so much, guys. Sorry about this filler chapter, I know it's not my best.

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**sweetheart.**

_Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative._ ~T.S. Eliot

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He hates it all: the barely noticeable rocking of the train along the tracks, the dizziness-inducing blur of scenery, the flauntingly pretty decorations. But he'd admit the food is good.

He stuffs himself to the very brim, juicy meat and crunchy vegetables and brightly-colored fruits he's never before seen in his life.

Maysilee Donner is the only one using her fork.

He wants to make a scathing comment, but finds his mouth is too full.

Later, he's stuck with a nearly bursting stomach and pleasantly buzzing head from the wine. He staggers into his suite, annoyed at the perfection of it all. So, slightly drunkenly, he leaves his dirty shoes on the flawless white carpet, strews pillows, rumples the blankets, knocks over a few seemingly worthless things, and stands back to survey his work.

It's a complete and utter mess, so he's happy. Or rather, _happier_.

He finds a slightly squashed toffee in his pocket, which he pops into his mouth, momentarily forgetting the fragile condition of his stomach.

He barely makes it to the bathroom, but he does, slamming the toilet lid up right in time as his dinner makes its unwelcome reappearance. The gold-plated toilet is probably worth more money than he's ever seen in his entire life, he notes with bitterness and the sickeningly sour taste of vomit.

And he wishes he'd thrown up on the carpet instead.


	5. strangers

**sweetheart.**

_I wish we were better strangers._ ~Anonymous

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"Well, don't you look pretty," is the first thing Haymitch ever says to the blond girl who's probably tasted every candy ever invented, the familiar sarcasm slipping easily out of his mouth.

They're all in identically awful coal miner's outfits.

She wishes for a spontaneously witty retort that would wipe the smirk off his face, but her mind is frustratingly blank. She would, however, admit that he looks a lot better in his costume than she does, _only_ because this is probably what he'd be doing, back home. If there were no Hunger Games.

But there are, and she can't do anything about the openly disparaging look he's giving her as he adjusts the miner's cap lower over his face.

There's a silence as all of them stare at the other—and admittedly much better-looking - tributes. "I bet we'd get more sponsors naked," he says to her, grinning. "Need some help with your costume, sweetheart?"

The first girl blushes. The boy manages a weak grin.

She ignores him. With difficulty.

He laughs, as if they're not going to die in two days, and wishes for a different girl, hundreds of miles away, who would have laughed with him.

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**A/N: **It's just not very believable for them to have a concrete romance before they become allies, as they hardly know each other. Yet. We'll see more of that after the interviews, though they really won't have much of a _concrete_ romance. I actually think there might be more after she dies.

For reviewers: quick question. Was it ever mentioned if Snow was the president during these Games?


	6. masquerade

**sweetheart.**

_No one can wear a mask for very long. _~Seneca

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"So, Haymitch," Caesar Flickerman begins, his smile so wide and bright and fake it looks like it might shatter. "What do you think of the Games having one hundred percent more competitors than usual?"

He shrugs, pulling idly at the shiny silver tie his prep team forced him into.

"I don't see that it makes much difference. They'll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same."

The audience bursts out laughing.

_And the Capitol is one hundred percent _more_ stupid than usual_, he adds to himself, with an outward smirk. There's nothing nerve-wracking about being up here, slouched in a chair next to a man completely dyed white, the entire country watching at him. It just doesn't feel very _real_.

"I'm sure everyone's dying to know if you've got a girl back home in District 12," Caesar hints, leaning closer with an exaggerated wink.

He stiffens. He's supposed to be independent, fearless, arrogant. Slightly charming. He kind of already is.

But admitting that she's waiting for him would obviously show the opposite. The audience eats it up, but no one gets any real sponsors besides the idiots who feel sorry for you. It takes a second to decide, to make a choice that might save his life. Well, maybe indirectly.

"Nope, I've been saving myself for all you _lovely_ Capitol people," he says, with just enough mockery to make everyone squirm. He can't win the Hunger Games by being charming.

It takes a while for him to realize that basically everyone in the Capitol is an idiot who feels sorry for you, once you have a significant other.

He hopes - uselessly - that she wasn't watching that.


	7. x & y

**sweetheart.**

_The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend._ ~Abraham Lincoln

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The arena is beautiful, sure. But the Hunger Games are never just pretty. Hell disguised as Heaven, and anyone who thought that the fruit or water was actually safe wouldn't survive for much longer.

He's actually doing pretty good, for someone from District 12. (Granted, Maysilee's picture hasn't been in the sky yet, either.) And then his plan crumbles - kind of, as the Career about to slice his throat drops dead, a dart sticking out of his skull, and a girl emerges from the trees.

"We'd live longer with the two of us," she says.

"Guess you just proved that," he allows grudgingly. "Allies?" She nods, and he wonders, _why him?_

Hours later, as the sky turns a dark shade of indigo, she suggests they stop for the day. He's secretly glad, because his feet are surely blistered, and the gash on his arm from those deceptively fluffy squirrels is beginning to ache again.

The faces in the sky disappear, the anthem fades out, and they come to a realization. There's only one sleeping bag.

"We can share it," she suggests, but neither of them are too comfortable with that idea. So he offers that she take it, because he's fairly certain that if he didn't, his mother would kill him if the Games hadn't.

She rolls her eyes. "Don't try to be polite. I'll take the first watch, and you can sleep."

"You can barely keep your eyes open," he says, "Take it. We'll both get some rest for tomorrow." The words are startling, even to himself.

"Fine," she acquiesces, surprising him - he'd expected her to be more stubborn, at least - and grabbing the sleeping bag, starting to climb the nearest tree. For a moment he's irritated, because he'd kind of wanted her to argue back, and then maybe he would have ended up with it.

"Don't let the squirrels bite, sweetheart," he laughs.

A tree branch digs uncomfortably into his back, she lets out a sigh that might be directed at him, and he thinks that maybe he shouldn't have been so ridiculously chivalrous.


	8. rainy day

**sweetheart.**

_A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in._ ~Frederick The Great

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"Haymitch, do you really think—" Her voice is dry, just like her throat.

"Did you feel that?" he asks, at the same time, the genuine surprise in his voice cutting her words off. They both look up simultaneously, hoping.

Another raindrop. Another. Soon the perfect blue sky is clouded over, rain pouring down like the Gamemakers are literally dumping buckets over the arena.

Maysilee tilts her head up to the grey sky, as if it were snowing instead. Haymitch is the more pragmatic of the pair, raising his empty bottle and his mouth at the same time.

After what must have been less than half a minute, the rain cuts off abruptly, the fake, too-yellow sun beaming like nothing ever happened. White clouds. They're both wet and shivering, though, hair plastered to their faces.

He looks at the dismal fourth of rainwater in his bottle and doesn't say anything.

"Well, I suppose we could've used a shower," she says, half seriously, half to fill the silence. He's never had a shower before in his life, except in the Capitol. (She has.)

"Probably." He shrugs. It's not like the blood from will ever _really _wash away, so why bother? He keeps walking. Almost as if he doesn't care if she's coming with him. He doesn't really, because it's her choice.

"Why?" she asks suddenly, her boots soaked and her feet aching. "Where exactly are we going, Haymitch?"

He doesn't turn, doesn't even look at her. She could walk the opposite way, end their alliance. Survive on her own. Win. Instead she follows him, hurrying to catch up. (He might be a little glad.)

_Where _exactly_ are we going?_ she'd asked.

…he doesn't have an answer yet, but he's working on it.


	9. on a snowy evening

_Additional Disclaimer:_ I don't own any of the song lyrics, quotations, poetry, etc. used, they belong to their respective authors.

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sweetheart.

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep._ ~Robert Frost, _Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening_

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"What do you miss the most?"

The question is loud in the dark—he's supposed to be sleeping, she's supposed to be keeping watch. She sighs. "I don't know. My family. Friends. I had a pet canary, you know?"

His words are so quiet that she barely hears them. "You _have_ a pet canary."

"Don't." She must have picked at the grass, because he can smell it, fresh and curiously sweet.

"Don't what?" he asks, too innocently. He's smirking, and he knows that she knows it, and that it irritates her.

"Act like I have a chance at winning."

"Don't we all?" is all he says in reply, the teasing practically gone from his voice. Seriousness doesn't suit him, she thinks.

"What do _you_ miss most, Haymitch?" she asks, instead of affirming or denying it.

He knows what he should say, what he _would_ say in any other circumstance. He misses her smell on the sheets hastily thrown over them, the way she always rolled her eyes at nearly everything he said, that dimple on her right cheek whenever she smiled. Which was rare, but still.

He closes his eyes, guiltily glad that she's home and not with him now.

"I don't miss anything."


	10. lost!

**A/N:** Inevitable, unless I'm writing AU, and I'm not. Hope it doesn't disappoint. Anyway, you awesome people who've reviewed are completely and utterly adored, you know that?

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**sweetheart.**

_Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm lost, doesn't mean I'll stop...just because I'm hurting, doesn't mean I'm hurt..._ ~Coldplay, _Lost!_

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"Let's go back," she suggests impatiently. He knows this is it, that he should disagree, and he does.

She looks at him, he looks down at the edge of the cliff. "All right," she decides, "There's only five of us left. May as well say good-bye now, anyway. I don't want it to come down to you and me."

"Okay," is all he says, knowing he should shake her hand or hug her or something like that. He doesn't. He'd actually been thinking the same thing; she was just braver. And he hates and loves the fact.

_I don't want to kill you either,_ he should have said. _Goodbye._ You were a good ally. Good luck. Something, anything.

She walks away slowly, her footsteps uncertain, almost as if she's waiting for him say "wait!" and call her back. Because maybe she would have come back, if he'd asked her to. But instead she disappears into the fake-pretty forest.

And then she's screaming, and he knows he should ignore it and let her die but he hears his name, and he just _can't_—

He swears and runs, away from the cliff and the delight of the force field at the bottom. It's too late and she's dying, scared blue eyes and bright pink birds and blood so awfully _dark_. Stained fingers. They reach—and he automatically catches them in his.

He realizes, holding her slippery fingers and trying to find something worthwhile to say, that he had never thought she would actually _die._

She manages a painful crescent of smile, coughing blood, her lips stained scarlet. It's ridiculous how dying can be so colorful, he thinks.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, the words wasted. Her eyes—he'll never forget that awfulprettysadhaunting color—are already glassy, and he knows that he should scream or cry or _something_ to show that he did care, at the end.

But he picks none of the above and delicately slides her eyelids shut.


	11. the sky could be grey

**A/N:** Your reviews made me think. Almost all of them contained something along the lines of "how sad/depressing" and "poor Haymitch/Maysilee." Angst overload? Maybe. Though if you're looking for a happy story you might as well quit reading. Ahem. Anyway, I promise there's going to be a happy(-ish) one from here until his girl (who _will_ be named soon) dies. Something to look forward to, I guess.

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**sweetheart.**

_Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed._ ~Emily Dickinson

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He doesn't mourn. Well, on the outside at least. He survives, because that's what the Hunger Games are all about.

Five left. Without her, four. Three.

And then two. The girl from District 1 (her name is Ruby or something stupid like that) and him, the boy from 12. Complete opposites, it's almost comical.

She's fast, faster than he expected. At first there's only startled surprise as her axe sinks into his stomach, jerking—and then the pain. It's harsh and, well, painful, and it reminds him that he's not as invincible as he thinks.

A flash of silver, a undiguised cry of pain, and his knife is buried in the girl's right eye, a pretty green that isn't so pretty anymore.

But she knocks the blade out of his hand with surprising swiftness for someone who now only has one eye, and he runs/stumbles/staggers to the edge of the lonely cliff. He has one chance, one last weapon. _Something we can use_, he'd said to a dead girl.

She flings her ax at him, but he's expecting it and ducks, sending it sailing into the rocky darkness of the cliff. He smiles, even as he can feel his intestines, blood spilling over his hands. _Perfect._

He doesn't see the ax embed itself in the girl's skull; he hears it, a nauseating crunch that no one expected but him. A cannon fires.

Trumpets blare. "Ladies and gentlemen, let me announce the victor of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, and the Second Quarter Quell, Haymitch Abernathy of District 12!" He's the second person from Twelve to ever win the Hunger Games.

How pathetic. He always thought victory would taste so much sweeter.

He stares up at the sky, the same shade of blue as a certain girl's eyes, and tries to think about home.


	12. all that glitters

**sweetheart.**

_Run, baby, run; don't ever look back. They'll tear us apart, if you give them the chance. _~We The Kings, Check Yes Juliet

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The president gives him a cold, unforgiving smile as he places the gold crown—he thinks it's actually pretty ugly—upon his head. He knows why, of course. But that doesn't mean he has to _care_.

He's past the Hunger Games, and now he feels pretty much invincible. Again. (He's far from it.)

"Congratulations," Snow announces with another artificial smile. "Looking forward to home?" He wants to gag at the thick scent of blood that wafts right into his face. But he gives a grin back, and says yes, of course he is. (He'll regret it, two weeks later.)

And then he's finally back in District 12, to an unfamiliar, too-large house in Victor's Village that isn't really _home_. He misses the coal dust.

His mother hugs him for what feels like the first time in forever; his little brother, Luc, running through the carpeted hallways and chattering excitedly. After the dinners and cameras and everything, _she_ stands in the doorway, staring distastefully at pretty much everything.

"Juliet." His voice cracks, and she cracks a smile. He drags her to him then, because he has no more words than that. She doesn't say a single word either as he kisses her and cries, with must be the whole goddamn ocean—(he's never seen it, but he's heard it's big)—leaking from his eyes.

Later, he impulsively buys a fresh loaf of bread for the first time in his life, white and soft. He only needs one slice, but it's not like he'll need the money.

"Want some toast, sweetheart?" he offers. Sincerely. He sort of expects her to say something rational, like, _we're sixteen_. (Or just flat out no.) But she doesn't.

He never thought he would taste salty-sweet butter on _this_ toast.


	13. liar, liar

**A/N:** We're now halfway through this story. Applause? Tears? Indifference? You pick.

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**sweetheart.**

_I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough._ ~M. C. Escher

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"_Haymitch," the girl whispers. Her hair is dry, like dirty straw. She smiles grotesquely, yellowed teeth stained with blood, even though she can't bleed when she's _dead_. _

_Her dress is made of pink feathers, glossy and bright and ugly. __Her eyes are always the same cool, accusing cerulean he remembers. _

_"You killed me, didn't you?"_

_"I'm sorry," he tries to say, but his mouth never works right. __Silently, eyes blank, she raises the blowgun to her lips, sucks in a breath, and—_

He doesn't know why he always wakes up screaming, fingers digging into the too-soft mattress, because she never actually kills him. Yet.

The girl beside him sighs. He slides out of bed before she can sit up, stumbling into the adjoining bathroom. He hasn't and won't apologize, but she follows him.

"Did you love her?" she finally asks, after a few silent nights, as he repeatedly splashes his face with freezing water as if it could scrub away his ugly memories. He can't hear anything but tiredness in her voice.

"Jealous, sweetheart?" The mocking, defensive words are out before he can stop them, or maybe he just doesn't want to.

She sighs again. He wants her to scream at him and tell him he's an idiot, because he can't tell himself that. She doesn't.

He stares at himself in the glass, bloodshot eyes, head aching with both his nightmares and the empty wine bottles he's been hiding from her. Uselessly, because she knows all about it. Can you love someone you didn't even really know at all?

"No," he says finally. "No, I didn't."

She's going to call him a liar, he can tell. But he pulls her back to the bed before she can speak.

The fluffy mattress does have some good uses, after all.


	14. do you promise?

**A/N:** Not too happy with this. Next chapter will be better, probably. Do you want them to die sooner (two chapters, including this one) or later (three)?

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**sweetheart.**

_And we know that it could be, and we know that it should be, and you know that you feel it too, 'cause it's nine in the afternoon and your eyes are the size of the moon._ ~Panic! at the Disco

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"Have you ever…thought about kids?" she asks one day, lying next to him as the almost-autumn sun pools across their bodies through the wide glass window. "I mean, not now, of course. But…someday?"

"No," he lies. "And I don't want any."

"Never?" He makes a noncommittal noise that doesn't fool her. "Someday," she says easily, like she'd expected him to say this.

She's always been the optimist. _Ten days ago, I was in the Hunger Games_, he'd say. And then she'd argue, saying it was ten days _since_ the Hunger Games. It's trivial to him, but he plays along.

"If the Games go away," he answers, because it's virtually impossible.

"I'd rather have a kid and lose them in the Hunger Games than not have one at all," she says.

"If the Games go away," he repeats, because he wouldn't. She laughs, only slightly bitterly. "Do you promise?"

Haymitch hesitates, but the chance of the Hunger Games magically going away is practically zero. It'll buy him a couple of decades, at the very least, he reasons. So he laughs, too, the bedsprings creaking as he leans over to plant a kiss on her cheek. "Sure, sweetheart. Promise."

She's smiling, and he can't resist.

"You'd better start joining the nonexistent rebellion that I'm supposedly leading, huh?"


	15. there was no thief

**A/N: **A shoutout to HalfHope, who nominated this for Best Non-Traditional Pairing in the Winter 2010 HG FF Awards.

I'm planning a Haymitch/Mrs. Undersee (before/during when she became Mrs. Undersee) story, which you'll get more after reading this. Completely canon. Thoughts? I'd love to hear them.

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**sweetheart.**

_Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones._ ~Proverbs 16:24

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Supposedly, Juliet tells him, there's a yellow-haired girl working at the candy shop who gets awful headaches.

The bell jingles, and the tiled floor is as shiny as he remembers. He winces again. The girl watches him enter warily, shoulders slumped inwards, dark circles under her eyes. She looks so much like Maysilee that it hurts to look at her too much. Not that he is.

"I'm sorry," he says again, inwardly cursing himself for those still useless words. He hands her the box. "For…well, everything."

She shakes her head, staring wide-eyed at the syringes. "I can't…I don't have enough money for this."

_I killed her_, he wants to say, impatiently, I killed her, and you're worried about _money_?

"I don't want your money," he says instead. _Thief,_ the floor squeaks.

She looks so relieved that he feels unexpectedly glad he thought of this. He hates the thought of her going to the new Head Peacekeeper, some disgusting excuse for a human named Cray, and realizes he doesn't even know her name. He imagines it starts with an M, like hers. Madeleine. Marisa. Mira. Mabel.

"A free candy, at least," she offers with a tired smile. She's pretty when she smiles, even though he can tell it isn't completely genuine.

"Something blue," he says, his coins clinking in the empty tip jar.


	16. honestly

**A/N:** I just finished writing this and the next two death scenes (cheerful, huh? I decided to spare you of three), but my computer got a virus and I don't know when I'll be able to post again. Hopefully I'll get it fixed sometime soon, but you never know. Just so you don't think I vanished off the face of the earth.

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**sweetheart.**

_Please don't mind what I'm trying to say, 'cause I'm being honest…now you know why I'm begging you to stay._ ~Cartel, _Honestly_

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Day ten. It's unseasonably humid and he's irritable for no reason at all. "The Justice Building usually isn't crowded on Thursdays," she begins, innocently enough.

"The Justice Building's never crowded, and you know it," he scoffs, knowing perfectly well what she's hinting at.

She abandons pretense. "Look, Haymitch, it won't kill you to sign a piece of paper. Just your name. And mine."

"Why do you care so much about it?"

"Why do you _not_ care?" she shoots back.

"I care," he says, but it's defensive rather than heartfelt. "But I've never asked your father. And I don't like commitments." She rolls her eyes. "He wouldn't care, you know that. And what am I doing here, then?"

"Official commitments," he amends. "_My_ father walked out on my mother, on _me_, did you know that? I was six."

"You're not your father," she says coolly, even though she hadn't. "This isn't about him!"

"Oh, right," he interrupts derisively, "It's about _us_." She glares at him, and he gives in and sighs. "I do care, okay?" he says, quieter. "And if _you_ care so much about a stupid piece of paper, I'll think about it."

"Take all the time you want." She kisses him lightly. "It won't kill you, promise."


	17. act five, scene three

**A/N:** So my idiotic computer miraculously revived itself from that virus-thing-that-I'm-not-actually-sure-was-a-virus. And then I decided I didn't like the way I'd originally written her death scene, so I rewrote it. Lucky you.

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**sweetheart.**

_For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. _~William Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_

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He pours her a flute of champagne. It's probably one of the only good things that come from the Capitol, he thinks, but then, he doubts it was ever actually made in the Capitol. She looks skeptically at the bubbles swirling around in the glass; he rolls his eyes and leans back against the counter.

"To thirteen days," she decides, raising her glass in the air. He grins.

"Only two weeks?" he says. "It feels like it's been longer."

She takes a hesitant sip, and he reaching for the bottle to pour a glass for himself. But hers falls from her fingers, spilling liquid and shards of crystal.

"Juliet?"

He barely catches her as she falls, heart beating so impossibly fast in his chest. She chokes, gagging, the sound horrifically familiar, but she isn't bleeding like the other girl. In one awful moment, an ugly realization grips him. Force field. President Snow. Cold eyes. _From the Capitol._ It wasn't meant for him, but then, it was.

He curses and moans and frantically presses his shaking fingers to her wrist, checking for a pulse he already knows will be absent.

_"Juliet…"_

Somehow, the smell of sickly-sweet roses clogs his nose, with an immediately recognizable companion. Blood. It might as well be a signature.

He shakes her, so hard, because this is undeniably worse than anything he'd ever faced in the arena. Her hair is so dark on the cream-colored tiles littered with shattered glass, and it hurts like hell to kneel on the floor beside her. "Don't do this to me, _please_…damn you, Juliet, don't…"

He's _not_ going to tell her to wake up.

Vacant eyes. Steadily cooling fingers. (He can't do anything but hold her hand this time, too.) Champagne-soaked hair.

And he's screaming, so loudly that it feels like his lungs will shatter, and he just might want them to.


	18. c'est la vie

**sweetheart.**

_He who loves fifty people has fifty woes; he who loves no one has no woes._ ~Buddha

* * *

He can see it, spiraling upwards, even this far away. Smoke.

Fear curls his stomach (he's never been so afraid in his life) and he runs, like he did for a girl he barely knew. All the way through the town and into the Seam, where his mother and Luc were cleaning out their old house, if you could even call it that—

Flames. They're wickedly bright, all golds and reds and oranges like too-soon autumn leaves. But it's too late, of course. It's always too late.

Tears streak down his face as the smoke stings his eyes. Or that's what he tells himself, because they're not _dead,_ they can't be dead, no, this is all a ridiculous dream and he's going to wake up next to _her_—

Thick smoke and salty tears are all he can taste, choking him speechless, when all he wants to do is scream—_there, you got what you wanted, didn't you?_ _He was only nine years old—I would have done whatever the hell you wanted, _anything_. _

In his head, Luc grins, and for the first time Haymitch can remember, he doesn't look too thin. His mother turns away to hide her smile when he tells her about _Juliet_—

He would've run into the burning house, not even to save them. But he can imagine the president laughing, because it's what he expects, and maybe what he wants. But he wouldn't even be a martyr, just a coward.

So he stands there with eyes burning like their house, nails digging into his scalp, and does nothing, and it's probably the worst feeling in the world.

And the ashes fall so fucking beautifully, like ugly snowflakes.


	19. drink me

**A/N: **I'm afraid this will be kind of disappointing, it's basically a filler. (Eight chapters to go.) Cookies if you know who the unnamed people are, it's not very hard.

**

* * *

**

sweetheart.

_Think I found a message in a bottle; it says, "Drink me, drown your sorrows." _~3OH!3, We Are Young

* * *

It hurts to think they're up in some kind of paradise without him.

The girl is only a few years older than he is, but he shoves too much money into her hand and she gives him every bottle. It takes him three days to drink all of it.

"You're my best customer," she tells him brightly, and he's glad that at least one person in this damn country is happy he's still alive, because he isn't.

On day three, seventeen days _since_ the Games, he's had enough of the constantly ringing phone (his head aches like hell) and he tears it down, fingers bleeding.

The canary yellow weeds tossed on the grave of a rich girl are the only bright things in the crowded cemetery.

There are (at least) one hundred corpses buried under his feet. He can't face going a few steps father, to the only slightly newer graves. This is the one place in the District that the snow isn't an ugly black slush. It almost looks pretty. But he's also here because of Snow, so he finds it too difficult to appreciate it much.

His mother, his brother, _her_…He almost forgets that his father's grave is here, too. (Good riddance.) His whole family is in this graveyard, but why not him?

He rarely sleeps. If he does, every light is switched on desperately, and even then Luc is holding the ax that slices his stomach, Juliet's the bird piercing Maysilee's throat, and his voice is so hoarse that his screams are almost soundless.

She's dead; they're both dead; they're all dead, and there's no going back.

("Does it help to turn on the lights?" a boy will ask him, twenty-four years later, blue eyes nearly as bloodshot as his and fingers stained with dried paint.

He'll say no.)


	20. i write sins

**A/N:** Because cameos are pretty awesome, IMHO. Chaff's next. Effie, probably not. Have a Merry Christmas, everyone.

* * *

**sweetheart.**

_Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and it's sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early._ ~Doug Stanhope

* * *

He's drunk, of course.

A man (twenties maybe, he can't really tell with Capitol people) approaches him at the president's manison, as he vomits up nothing but wine and bile into bushes full of snow-white roses. "Nice performance in the Quell, Mr. Abernathy. I personally found it inspiring."

He groans and scowls. "You'd call killing fourteen people inspiring?"

The man smiles, his voice dropping into a whisper. "Only the last. Ingenious method."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Heavensbee," he answers crisply. "Plutarch Heavensbee, Gamemaker."

"Yeah, well, you can go—"

"_Haymitch_. Don't tell me you didn't notice the stirrings in the Districts? It's because of you. People need you. _We_ do."

His realization is quickly overwhelmed with bitterness. "Find another mascot," is his reply, as he straightens up. "Personally, I'm not into suicide."

Later, he stands in front of a sea of unsmiling faces, some of them familiar, words caught in his throat. He coughs. He's memorized the words he has to say, but he wants to say something actually meaningful, something that will do her justice.

"I…I didn't—"

His microphone cuts off as he obviously ignores the prepared speech. He rolls his eyes and thinks it's overkill.

The whipping is private. It hurts too much for only a few words he didn't get a chance to say. But he would've said them, would have spat what might have well been the rebels' little rallying speech in the Capitol's face. And that's what they're so goddamn afraid of.

"I just might be into your idea of suicide," he laughs sourly, a year later, after two kids are added to the cast of his nightmares.


	21. and tragedies

**A/N:** Happy New Year's to everyone. (I completely recommend the book _Unwind_, by the way, which is pretty amazing.)

* * *

**sweetheart.**

_"I don't want to be social," Connor says. "I don't like the kids here." __"Why?" asks Risa, "They're too much like you?" __"They're losers." __"Yeah, that's what I mean." _

_He gives her a halfhearted dirty look. _~Neal Shusterman, _Unwind_

* * *

Two years later, a man (winner of the forty-eighth, he's vaguely sure) comes up to him. "Chaff," he introduces himself.

Haymitch grunts. He hates victors, which is more than a little hypocritical. Chaff orders him another drink, plus one for himself, so he changes his mind. "You got a girl in Eleven?"

He nods. "Her, one sister, three brothers. You?"

"Not anymore." He doesn't offer anything other than that.

"Lucky bastard," Chaff says, only half-jokingly. Haymitch downs his drink and laughs, bitter, because he's doesn't feel lucky at all.

On the wall behind them, a gong rings. The cameras switch around dizzyingly, boygirlboygirl. A girl hurls a knife into the back of a fleeing tribute, and the younger falls easily. And then the next death. And the next. And the next.

He looks away, but Chaff's looking at him steadily. "What?" he snaps.

"That was your kid."

"They're not my kids," he says, even though they are. (Niels Allerman, fifteen. The girl won't last much longer.) He sits by and laughs at them most of time, because they don't stand a chance at living and he can't do anything but hate the fact.

"Don't tell me I'm a coward."

"You're a coward," Chaff says promptly.

"Takes one to know one," he answers, and they can't argue with that.


	22. redux

A/N: Thanks for everything, and sorry that I took longer than usual to update. (My English teacher is insane.)

I want to say that this is a story about Haymitch. Not particularly about his Games, or Katniss' and Peeta's, or the rebellion. This is not a Haymitch-perspective of the series; so keep that in mind for the rest, which will be kind of...sketchy.

* * *

**sweetheart.**

_We're burning down the highway skylines  
__On the back of a hurricane that started turning  
When you were young. _

~The Killers

* * *

_Looks like I got a pair of fighters this year._

He can't dare to let himself hope. He sees her gold pin and dark hair and grey eyes and his blond hair and blue eyes and he remembers, like always, two different girls he couldn't save.

The girl is less pretty than his, or maybe that's just him. It's jarring and heartbreaking and makes him want a drink all at the same time.

_You've got about as much charm as a dead slug._

(And he hopes anyway.)_  
_

_Stay alive. _It took forty-six kids to find two that could ever have a chance.

It's ridiculous. He should be drinking, but instead he's watching them _and_ drinking, eyes glued to the screens. He and Chaff even have a sober pact when their kids form an alliance. (He cheats, and so does Chaff, but the idea's there and that's what counts.)

He puts his money on the girl, rather her than nothing. But they both live, and he tries not to hate them for that. Because he could have been her. But he thinks the girl on fire sounds so much better than the boy on fire, which does nothing but remind him of ashes in a dying summer.

He hugs her, hard, and closes his eyes and curses himself for loving them both to death.

_Nice job, sweetheart._


	23. deathbed, almost

**sweetheart.**

_So many things I'd do again._ ~Relient K, Deathbed

* * *

They have just about the worst luck in the world, because then it's time for the Quarter Quell—already?—and he hears the words "existing pool of victors" and he _knows_. The Capitol plans to have one winner, the boy plans to have one winner, the rebels plan to have one winner. Hell, even the girl plans to have one victor.

Not if he can help it, rebellions and Mockingjays aside.

It's so much harder than he expected, watching them watch his Games. He sees himself reaped, so much younger and a lot better-looking. Maysilee, too. He relives the Games, grass the color of limes and his dreams. She dies. Again.

The TV is so much brighter than his dissolving memories, and he's tempted to run away and make good use of the wine he'd stolen.

And then he wins, a blindly pleased grin on his face because _you've won, you beat the Capitol at its own Games._

"It's almost as bad as us with the berries!" Katniss laughs, sounding genuinely surprised.

"Almost, but not quite," he slurs, pretending he's drunker than he is.

The boy follows him as he walks away, and he wishes the boy didn't know him as well as he does. It's probably why he likes the girl better. She doesn't care. She's as selfish as he is.

Distantly, the girl begins to scream. The boy doesn't move, but his eyes flicker down the corridor of the train. "Did you love her?" he asks, after a moment in which Haymitch downs the rest of the wine to avoid looking at him.

_Who? _he wants to say, but he wouldn't be fooling anyone. So he laughs and yanks the cork out of another bottle.

"Not everyone's a star-crossed lover, kid."


	24. you'll drown

**A/N:** I went insane the other day and edited all of the early chapters, just polishing rough edges, but the changes aren't drastic.

Also. I made a banner. Link's on my profile. ^^

* * *

**sweetheart.**

___Drunk, I rise and approach the moon in the stream. _~Li Bai, "Amusing Myself"

* * *

They're all holding hands and he wants to be up there with them, facing the Capitol and cracking his impossibly old jokes about Chaff's lack of a left hand. Even though there's no way in hell he wants to go back to any arena.

He would've, though, if the boy wasn't so damn tragic.

_You just remember who the enemy is._

Then, an agonizingly long time later, the arena's an utter mess of charred trees and dead fish and the sharp smell of saltwater, but they were able to pick up the girl and she's all that matters to them. She's not all that matters to him, but they're spouting words like risks and mockingjay and _useless, really_.

Useless _without_ him, he thinks, and they'll realize that soon. Only a quick sting of guilt betrays the promise he made to a girl drunk on his cheap liquor.

And then he's told that Chaff's dead, and they didn't bother to pick up his corpse. He'd expected it, sure. Dreaded it, even. And he grieves.

(That night, he drinks enough for two.)

She looks hysterical and as far from the Mockingjay as she can get. He smirks. _So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol?_

He breaks the news. Her nails feel welcome, almost. And then it stings, and she's screaming that he's a coward and deserves to die more than Peeta ever did and he's screaming worse things back.

Her fingernails drip red.

At least she feels a fraction of what he felt before, because she still has so many faces left to lose and he doesn't.

(Well, except for them.)


	25. the lion's pride

**A/N -** I, er, got carried away. Longest chapter, and implications galore; you can ask if it's too subtle.

(Two left. This will end on 2/14, Valentine's Day. Fitting, huh?)

* * *

**sweetheart.**

_So I'll ask one thing, just one thing, of you: don't ever turn me loose, even when I turn my back._ ~Relient K, Sahara

* * *

He yearns silently in the blindingly white-walled room, far from the first time, for a drink. Because here, no alcohol in sight, they come back to haunt him.

His brother sits next to him on a red sofa instead of a cot. "You're coming home, aren't you, Haymitch? You're gonna win?" he asks, eyes wide and innocent. (Brown. Haymitch hates them.)

"Yeah, kid," he says. "I'm coming home."

"I've always wanted to see what those big victor houses looked like on the inside," Luc laughs.

* * *

His mother cries silently in the kitchen, while he watches, six years old, from the doorway. He asks when his father is coming home (it's too dark, and he doesn't like it), and his mother starts crying harder, pulling him into a too-tight hug he knows he's not allowed to pull away from.

"He's not coming home," she finally murmurs, smoothing curls of dark hair back from his forehead.

He grows up too fast, and soon his mother flinches every time she looks at him, the spitting image of the father who might as well be dead. He's smart enough to know you can't have a baby brother without _someone_, and that their jar of coins was half-full for the first time in months.

He begins to hate the father he can barely remember, and the mother who can.

* * *

A dark-haired girl stops to pick a few yellowing flowers from the Meadow. She tells him their names, but he doesn't bother to remember what they're called.

"Why?" he asks.

"They're pretty," she says. A useless answer, he thinks, rolling his eyes. He couldn't care less about things that are pretty, unless it's her.

"So? It's not like they're going to be like that forever, sweetheart," he scoffs. After which they're bright as ever for an irritatingly long time, shoved (by him) into a mug half-filled with water (by her).

She catches him glaring at them a lot, and he kind of likes the smirk on her face even if he constantly tells her, half-lightheartedly, to go to hell.

* * *

A yellow-haired girl lies in a sleeping bag next to him, shifting restlessly, her gold pin winking in the dark. He wonders if she would be more still if he were there. Probably not. "Your pin reminds me of those toilets," he says, almost challengingly.

"On the train?"

"Yeah."

She's quiet. And then, "Just so you know, my family doesn't have gold toilets."

He almost feels guilty. But "I know" is all he says back. "Stealing is punishable by death," she adds. He wishes she hadn't, because now he _does_ feel guilty.

His laugh is humorless. "I'm here, aren't I?"

* * *

Years later, the girl called the Mockingjay is as broken as he used to be. She sobs and he regrets telling her about them as he pats her back.

_It'll be okay, sweetheart._


	26. sahara

**sweetheart.**

_To be alone, to be dethroned, believe me, I know all about it._ ~Relient K, Sahara

* * *

The rebellion ends. The little girl's dead and he drinks and finds he misses her. A little. Because the older girl really is insane now. She'd be identical to him, if it wasn't for the boy (of course) and her mother.

Haymitch fights for her, on trial. He lists every single thing she's done for them and their cause.

She wins, of course. She always wins.

* * *

He goes to hell. Again.

Actually, it's only an arena.

Forty-nine kids died here, in an ugly paradise. It's morbid of him to come, but he can't resist. The cliff is the same lonely place he remembers. For a moment he's tempted to jump and see if the force field is still working.

(Because he kind of wishes he died in the rebellion, to be perfectly honest.)

Heavensbee told him that they're going to be destroying all seventy-five arenas, building homes and cities and fields, and the bastard actually looked _sad_ about it.

He grits his teeth and moves on. He doesn't want to see the clearing where she died, but he goes anyway because it's clearly marked with bright arrows. He lies in the tall grass and inhales the smell of dirt.

Azure sky. Real. The trees whisper. _I saw her die. Those pink birds, do you remember? She choked, and you held her hand._

He thinks he might be drunk. (Why else would he be having a conversation with trees?)

"I saw everyone die," he says anyway.


	27. do not disturb

**A/N:** Happy Valentine's. Maybe it's repetitive, but thank you so much for alerting (It's actually the highest I've ever had), favoriting, and reviewing. I usually don't reply to reviews, but I do appreciate every single one I find in my inbox, and I wish I could copy and paste all of your names here. You're all amazing for wading through all that angst with me. A favorite chapter? Least? Let me know.

More Haymitch stories to come? Most likely. Feel free to alert me if you want to read them. In the meantime, however, you could always check out _brightside_ or _Canary Yellow_.

* * *

**sweetheart.**

_Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start  
_…_when are you going to realize?  
__it was just that the time was wrong._

~Dire Straits, "Romeo and Juliet"

* * *

Forty-six kids. He may have been drunk, but he still remembers all of their names. And faces. He closes his eyes and talks; words flowing out as if it would hurt less if he talked faster.

A week later, the girl and the boy show him the book.

He flips past page after page quickly, because he knows their faces more closely than he'd care to admit. It's ridiculous to think that he could ever forget, even with the liquor.

And then one particularly catches his eye. Blueberry sucker eyes, yellow curls. She almost looks real, still sixteen, instead of just a drawing and his ineloquent words in a depressing book. A familiar gold pin is attached to the corner.

He slams the book shut. He knows who will be on the next page and he wants to see her and doesn't.

He walks out of _their_ house—"Looks like you don't have boy trouble anymore, huh, sweetheart?"—and to the graveyard again. But this time, he buys something along the way. He sweeps away the rubble and ashes of a ruined district until his fingers blister. And then digs, in front of every single grave. To the Meadow, where there used to be a gaping wound full of corpses, covered by hurriedly-shoveled-in earth.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. Someday. In a few weeks, the grass is almost as green as it was in his Games, and the flowers burst like overripe fruit, sunny yellows and dark, bruised purples, all insanely bright in the midst of everything else that's utterly dark.

There are no roses.

Years later, when he's already gone back to their book and stared at all those people he lost, the girl asks, "Are you happy, Haymitch?" A hand on her round stomach, the boy wearing a proud smile. They want him to say yes, because _they_ are.

He just laughs.

_Fin._


End file.
